HELLCAT

 

HELLCAT

Real Name: Patricia Walker

First Appearance: Fantastic Four Annual (Vol. 1) #3, October 1965 (as Patsy Walker); Avengers (Vol. 1) #144, February 1976 (as Hellcat)

Powers: Patsy Walker became a super-hero after wearing a costume originally designed for The Cat (Greer Grant Nelson). As Hellcat, the costume enhanced the strength, speed, endurance, reflexes, and agility of any woman wearing it (though not to superhuman levels). The costume is outfitted with retractable, casehardened, steel alloy claws on both the gloves and boots, enabling Hellcat to rend brick or stone. Hellcat can employ her cable-claw, which straps to her wrist and uses a compressed gas firing mechanism to propel a four clawed grappling hook connected to a 30 foot length of steel-niobium alloy memory cable (that coils itself back into its spool upon rewinding), which she uses for swinging or tightrope walking. As she modified the costume over time, though, Patsy switched out for normal boots and removed the claws, settling on a single claw-cable which fired from the back of her hand. Wearing the suit for an extended period of time eventually internalized the effects, increasing her physical prowess permanently.

As the Titanian princess Moondragon was training Hellcat in the psychic disciplines, she transferred a portion of her own mental power into Patsy's mind. Hellcat was capable of psychokinetically levitating small objects, exerting greater resistance to mental control, and once discharged a massive psionic bolt which caused physical damage and mentally disrupted anyone who was nearby. Moondragon eventually retrieved the psychic power she had left in Hellcat's mind, but Patsy still proved to be unnaturally sensitive to certain psychic and mystical phenomena. For a time, she also employed a Shadow-Cloak, like Devil-Slayer's. This cloak was a gateway into other dimensions: By wrapping herself up in it, she could teleport from place to place by moving between dimensions. Hellcat could also retrieve virtually any weapon she could think of simply by reaching into the folds of the cloak and concentrating on pulling a weapon out from it. She frequently used swords and daggers. Eventually, though, Hellcat stopped using the cloak altogether. After dying and being resurrected, Patsy brought back some new abilities with her from Mephisto's realm. She could now manifest her costume at will, exchanging it for whatever she was wearing. She was also sensitive to demonic energy, allowing her to see through glamour illusions and pick up on large concentrations of mystical energy in her area.

Patsy Walker is a natural athlete who was coached in field combat techniques by the Avengers and the martial arts by Moondragon.